# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/erich-ludendorff
# Generated: 2026-09-01T00:27:22.625Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/erich-ludendorff"
name: "Erich Ludendorff"
slug: "erich-ludendorff"
description: "He ran Germany's war machine as a virtual military dictator from 1916 to 1918, winning crushing victories in the east before watching the whole effort collapse. After the armistice, he spent two decades blaming everyone else — and marching alongside the men who would finish what he started."
tagline: "German Army officer (1865–1937)"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Erich_Ludendorff.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
category:
  name: "Politicians"
  slug: "politicians"
profileType:
  name: "Politician"
  slug: "politician"
birthDate: "1865-04-09"
deathDate: "1937-12-20"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           63.2
  momentum:             16.37305699481865
  historical:           26.386404
  currentAttention:     19.88888888888889
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  65
  trendDirection:       "STABLE"
ranks:
  global:   null
  country:  null
  category: null
tags:
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    slug: "politician"
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  - name: "Stand Up"
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  - name: "19th Century"
    slug: "19th-century"
platforms:
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Erich Ludendorff came from a non-noble Prussian family and climbed the ranks on merit, admitted to the War Academy in 1893 and assigned to the Great General Staff by 1904, where he helped develop the Schlieffen Plan. Removed once for meddling in politics, he redeemed himself in August 1914 by leading the assault on Liège, then engineered the annihilation of Russian forces at Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes under Hindenburg's command. By August 1916 he'd maneuvered himself into the role of First Quartermaster General, establishing a military dictatorship that controlled Germany's entire war strategy — he secured Russia's defeat and launched the 1918 spring offensives that briefly looked like breakthrough, until the Hundred Days Offensive crushed it all and the Kaiser forced him out. He spent the Weimar years peddling the stab-in-the-back myth, blaming Marxists, Freemasons, and Jews for the loss, and threw in with the Kapp Putsch in 1920 and Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 before a failed presidential run in 1925. His final work, The Total War, argued that peace was just a gap between wars and that nations must stay perpetually mobilized. He died of liver canc